


Someone Has to Do It

by mstrchu



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Dragon Age Quest: Here Lies the Abyss, Dragon Age: Inquisition Spoilers, Other, honestly i'm just trying to cOPE
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-01
Updated: 2016-12-01
Packaged: 2018-09-03 13:02:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8714965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mstrchu/pseuds/mstrchu
Summary: Garrett Hawke was a fixer. Damage control: it's what he did best.





	

It had always been this way.

Somewhere, something would go wrong, and somehow, Garrett Hawke would be the one to take care of it, even if he had to pull the solution straight out of his ass. He was a fixer, and everybody knew it.

Malcolm Hawke knew it in his final moments, when his body was wracked with the pains of an illness that no healer – magic or not – could identify, and every breath brought him closer to the end.

“Take care of them,” he rasped. “Especially the twins, I-”

“I know,” Garrett said, shifting in his chair by the bed. He wore a lopsided grin that betrayed only the slightest hint of strain, but only through the tenseness in the corner of his mouth and only if you looked very closely. “Someone has to do it.”

Leandra Hawke knew, even as she wrung her hands in distress and indecision. Staying meant allowing her children to be sold into servitude for a year in exchange for entry into Kirkwall, but what other options did they have? Returning to Ferelden would be certain death.

“Are you sure about this?” she asked, eliciting a laugh from Garrett.

“Relax, mother,” he said. With the ease that came with practice, he twirled his staff and “accidentally” knocked Carver on the head, who then released a string of curses at his brother. “If this is what will get us into Kirkwall, someone has to do it.”

Everyone in Kirkwall would learn it, murder by murder, dispute by dispute. Add in a group of bandits here, a Qunari invasion there, and Garrett Hawke quickly established himself as the one slapping duct tape over all Kirkwall's problems.

Then the chantry exploded, and Hawke was caught in the middle of it all.

He was running out of duct tape.

“Thank you,” Orsino said quietly, “for standing with us.”

Garrett shrugged. “Someone has to do it.” His gaze passed over his companions, lingering momentarily on Fenris, throat constricting when he wondered if they would survive the templar onslaught. Would he? Did he even want to?

After Kirkwall, the years – the _happy_ years, if he could call them that – seemed to pass in the blink of an eye, and he found himself wondering why he hadn't savoured it more. Why he hadn't taken one last moment to lose himself in the soft green of Fenris' eyes, so different from the sickly hue of the Fade.

“Go!” Hawke's grip tightened around his staff. “I'll cover you.”

Alistair argued, but the debate was over before it had begun. The Wardens would need a leader, and Garrett was not their man.

“Hawke,” the Inquisitor said, voice quiet and breaking.

“Right,” Hawke said. “Say goodbye to Varric for me.”

“I will. And... I'm sorry. For what it's worth, I'm – I'm sorry.”

Hawke smiled. His cheeks felt tight. He rolled his shoulders and forced himself to relax, to breathe, to not give the Nightmare the satisfaction of feeding off his fear.

“Well,” he said. “Someone has to do it.”

**Author's Note:**

> Here Lies the Abyss has done nOTHING but make me feel like a terrible person and regret my choices in DA:O, so I wrote this to... I don't know, make me feel better about leaving Hawke in the Fade or something??
> 
> It didn't work and also I'm pretty sure I was supposed to be studying for something while I wrote this.


End file.
